Although money is clearly no guarantee of contentment and there are anomalies in the data – as a general rule the better off we are financially the happier we are.

But yet we still restate our fridge-magnet mantra about the irrelevance of money to happiness over and over again – a cosy boast of our lack of materialism.

And in recent years with the advent of the highly influential ‘positive psychology’ movement – this idea has been given a new academic respectability.

(cont..)

(ed:..that ‘money can’t buy happiness’ truism so blithely trotted out can be viewed as propping up the neoliberal idea/belief of:..’screw the people..!..the market rules.!’..

..and supports the followers and believers of neoliberalism in both the tories and the new zealand labour party..

..those who have engineered/created the mess we now find ourselves mired in..

(if asked ‘how did we get to this?’..all you have to do is mutely point at pictures of the new zealaand prime ministers of the last three decades..and yes..i include helen clark in that indictment..

…clark not only didn’t undo the depredations shipley/richardson/douglas etc had wrought on the poorest/sickest in new zealand..she tightened the screws/stomped on their necks even more..for nine long bloody years..

..there was not only her maligning/stigmatising of the poorest campaigns…(who can forget clarks’ ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ families dictums..used to both justify doing nothing for those most in need and to usher in her welfare for the middle-class..

..a highlight/nadir of that particular campaign being clark publicly empathising with couples/families ‘struggling’ on $75,000 a yr..(!)..

..those truly struggling in true poverty could only look on in a state of shock and feckin’ awe..at these pronouncements from clark..)

..not only did clark do this..she also cut the incomes of the poorest..she ended previous add-on options for special circumstances…and hit another nadir with her neoliberal-drenched reason for this..this was so all beneficiaries would have ‘a level playing field’..she cut those options for those with special circumstances justifying further support on the grounds of ‘fairness’…

..now..how does the uncaring-cynicism inherent in that not make you dry-retch..?

..and then clark went off to work for the u.n – to work for the global-poor…(!)..where she has received beaurocratic-acclaim for her successes in ‘cutting programs’…(does any of that sound familiar..?..)

..but i digress..

..of course money does ‘buy happiness’..if you define ‘happiness’ as a relief from the miseries/stresses/family break-ups/crime etc. of/from poverty..(i.e…life in nz in 2016..for so many..)

..and is one of the strongest arguments for stopping the corporates/elites/richest/kleptocrats from robbing the rest of us blind with their clever lawyer/accounting tricks-

For the last year, media pundits and commentators have suggested that the Bernie Sanders campaign is ‘naive’ ‘unrealistic’ and ‘misguided’ for a range of reasons and on a range of issues.

But it’s really the media who are missing the mark.

Most recently in the Boston Globe – Michael A. Cohen asserted that Sanders has a ‘simple-minded understanding of American politics’ because he has made getting big money out of politics a central issue of his campaign.

This assertion is itself misguided – the product of a media environment that has largely missed the defining narrative of the 2016 election.

That narrative is the rapidly-rising importance of money in politics as an electoral issue among voters of both major parties.

The evidence could not be clearer.

A June 2015 New York Times poll revealed 85 percent of Americans support fundamentally changing or completely rebuilding the system for funding elections.

Or that 30% of GOP voters recently polled support the bombing of Agrabah – a fictional city.

Yet despite the overwhelming public demand for getting big money out of politics – the ten presidential debates hosted by the media have failed to ask a single question about solutions to this threat to our democracy.

When an issue has broad bipartisan support – across ideology and demographics – it’s not naive to campaign on it – it’s common sense.

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The ‘Millenial’ generation are shaking up traditional financial rules.

The money lives of the ‘Millennial’ generation are being scrutinised by companies as they begin to make their financial power felt.

Much is being made of the special characteristics of Millennials, born in the 1980s and 1990s, almost as though they were a new species of human, one that’s half person, half mobile device.

Millennials largely share the same financial goals and desires – such as home ownership – as previous generations.

But study after study has been done on this generation to try to find out what makes them different, and how best to appeal to them. New Zealand research gives us many insights into their money lives.

CARS

There’s a notion that we may be experiencing ‘peak car’ which is the high point in car use in our society. Part of that debates centres on Millennials and their attitude to motors, and most especially the cost of running the things.

While previous generations saw cars as a means of extending their personal freedom – fewer Millennials seem to see benefits in even getting licences.

New Zealand Transport Agency statistics show the number of driving licences held by 16 to 19 year olds has declined across the country over the five-year period 2008 to 2013.

Auckland had a 21 per cent decline. Wellington was down 56 per cent. Dunedin and New Plymouth had 25 per cent drops.

And licences held in the 20 to 24 age group have increased at a slower rate than the increase in numbers in people of that age in the population. Research by University of Otago PhD student Aimee Ward found younger Millennials were baulking at the cost of running cars – but also found many ambivalent about driving at all.